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The moment a vendor accepts your conditional offer, you’re on a deadline whether you feel ready or not. We sit down with Megan (soldiering on through a sore throat) to unpack what a conditional offer really looks like in New Zealand, why conditions exist, and how buyers accidentally waste the very protections they asked for. If you’ve ever wondered how to structure a finance clause, when to order a builder’s report, or what to do with a cross lease title check, this chat will help you move with clarity and confidence.
We talk through the most common conditions we see in a Sale and Purchase Agreement: builder’s report, LIM report, title review, legal advice, finance approval, KiwiSaver withdrawal, and insurance. Then we get practical about the timeframes. It’s not enough to write “10 days” and hope it happens. You need to book the builder early, make sure your lawyer can review the contract quickly, and keep copies moving so nothing stalls. We also tackle the big question buyers ask behind the scenes: who is actually responsible for tracking condition dates the lawyer, the mortgage broker, the real estate agent, or you?
A real-world insurance example shows how even seasoned buyers can miss a step when they assume someone else will remind them. Finally, we cover what to do when a builder’s report raises concerns: flag it early, get advice from your property team, and leave time for quotes or renegotiation before your conditions expire. If you want more help, search our earlier content on conditional offers and reach out for the free booklet. Subscribe, share, and leave a review, and tell us what condition you find most stressful to manage.
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Today we are back in the house dis discussing real estate and I've got Megan with her sore throat, but we're gonna persevere. So please forgive if she coughs. Hello, Megan.
SPEAKER_00
Hello.
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people ask us, how do I make a conditional offer? Right? And you get the same question?
So a conditional offer is basically when you make an offer to purchase a house and you put conditions on it. It's sort of the clue is in the name. So you might put on a condition for a builder's report, you might want a title check if it's a cross lease, you might want to get a limb, you might want to get legal advice, like the lawyer to check the contract or give you any other kind of legal advice. Finance, of course, finance. How could I not say that first? You might have Kiwi Saver if you're a first home buyer or if you're qualifying for any kind of Kiwi Saver withdrawal. So those are the the typical, if I forgot if I've forgotten something, please forgive me. I'm just saying this off the top of my head. But they're the typical conditions that somebody would put onto an offer.
And so when the homeowner accepts your offer, then you have X many days to meet your conditions. So if you said I would like five or 10 days for a builder's report, you need to ring the builder and arrange a time within that time frame for the builder to come through, allowing time for them to write the report, give it to you for you to read it and understand it, and then tell your lawyer whether you're happy with the report and you want to proceed or not.
SPEAKER_01
So you're not waiting five days and then on the first day, you're like, hey, I forgot I need to do a builder's report.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah. Same with the title. I mean, the real estate agent should send a copy of the contract to your lawyer, but don't rely on that. Make sure you also get a copy of the contract and forward it to your lawyer and say, you know, I've asked for you to do a title check. Can you please do this within three days? Ideally, you would have spoken to the lawyer first and made sure that they have capacity to do it within
Question. Whose responsibility is it to stay on top of the conditions? Is it the lawyer that should be reminding you? Is it your broker that should be reminding you? Or is it up to you to make sure that you're on top of those days and conditions?
SPEAKER_00
From a legal perspective, I'm actually not sure. But I would throw the agent in there as well. Ah, you're going to throw yourself under the bus. I would, yeah, because if I had a buyer who was trying to buy a house that I was selling, or even if I was trying to sell one of my colleagues' properties to one of my buyers, I would feel like I should at least check in with the buyer and say, so have you booked the builder or have you done this? Have you done that? Just from a helpful perspective, I don't think there's any legal obligation. I might be wrong with that. I think the person who makes the offer is actually responsible for making sure, like if they want to buy their house and they want those conditions on their offer, then that'd be for a reason, right? Like they need to know that information before they can make that final decision to confirm on the purchase. But, you know, everyone gathering around and helping them out and saying, so have you found a builder yet? No, I can suggest some. Do you need help with your finance? Hopefully they've got their finance already sorted. But you know, like you, if there is anything we can help with or call them about or say, oh, you haven't got a lawyer, I mean, we should be asking that in advance. So they should be ready to go. But yeah, I think it's their responsibility.
It was really interesting. The reason I asked that, I had clients recently on their offer. This is not their first purchase, right? This is like their fifth or sixth purchase. And they come to me and they're like, hey, do we need to arrange insurance? And I'm like, Yeah, of course you do. And they're like, Well, how come you didn't tell us? And I was like, This is your fifth property you buy, you're not a first-time buyer. You know, you put that as a condition. Surely you know that you need to be arranging insurance. I did feel bad, of course. I'm like, oh damn, I'm sorry I didn't remind you. Yeah. But then part of me was like, Well, you're an adult too.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. So they put a condition on for insurance.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00
And then they didn't do it.
SPEAKER_01
No. And then they were like, Oh, do we need to? Do we don't need to?
SPEAKER_00
Do you want insurance?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. So is there insurance? And usually I do insurance quotes for our clients as well.
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
But I think in that particular case, because they normally go and sort out their own insurance, I assumed they were okay sorting out their own insurance.
SPEAKER_00
Especially if they made that condition. If you didn't see it as a condition on the offer, you might have then said, Oh, by the way, you'll need insurance to get finance. So therefore, do you want me to do a quote or not? But if you see it as a condition that they already know about, then you'd assume that they'd go and get it. But also when the lawyer looks at the contract, usually my understanding is that the lawyer would also point to all those conditions and say, okay, so you need to do these things. Yeah, because the lawyer can't do it for you.
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah, and I think this is very, very important for people to understand that conditional offer, this is your time to really get your A into G and really be on top of it. And you know, I love those lawyers that are on top of it. There are some phenomenal ones that get in touch with clients that remind them and you know, got certain strategies in place for that. But then there are some lawyers that completely drop the ball. And then on the last day, they go, Oh, you haven't done that? Oh, you haven't done this, or you should have. And then the client, if it's their first home, they have no idea what they're doing. So if they don't have a good mortgage broker on the team, if they don't have a good real estate agent that's actually chasing them and following them up, and they're relying solely on a lawyer because let's face it, that's the guy that's actually gonna get paid. Or a girl, a lady. I don't know why I went there. I don't know why a lawyer is suddenly a male. I'm sorry. But you know what I mean? Like it's I think it's everyone's responsibility, but the clients should really be aware that when they put that conditional offer and they do include all those various conditions, they need to be on top of it.
SPEAKER_00
Well, it's their information, like they're doing the search into the property, and if they want to buy it, they need that information to be able to feel comfortable to buy it, then they that is their time. Yeah.
And if there's anything that comes up during that time, so say for example, they have 10 days and they get a builder's report on day five, and by day six, they're really worried because they've read the builder's report and they're like, oh, is this normal? And they don't know what to do. They need to tell somebody really quickly, like either their lawyer and not just a Facebook friend. No, they're you say somebody somebody in in their circle of you know of helpers, so their mortgage advisor, their lawyer, or their real estate agent, they need to say, This has been flagged. What should I do? Or I I'm not I don't want to buy it anymore, or I need more information. Like, because a lot of the time there's something that's identified in a builder's report, and the homeowner has time then to go get some quotes. And we did that recently with somebody that was looking at the builder's report, unsure what to do. And we said, Hey, thanks for telling us. And the vendor went and got a couple of different building quotes, and the good news was it didn't take a lot to fix it. And so she said, Well, I'm open to repairing this or renegotiating the price. So that gives that, and that was within the 10 days. So it gives us time to sort of sort it all out.
it. Look, guys, I did do an episode before with Crunch as well, what it looks like as a conditional offer from our finance point of view. If you go on any of the channels that you're listening this on at the moment and search conditional offer under that Home Lon Hub, you should be able to find that library of various videos that we've recorded because I believe knowledge is power. And you as an adult making an offer on the house, you need to know those things, you need to know the steps. And I also put together a little free booklet. So if you want to reach out, reach out, we'll send it to you. And don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. Thank you, Megan. Thank you.
